Star Trek - Lost Souls [Cortex +]

Lost Souls 2012A was successfully retrieved from the planet Mina in Galaxy X-972-8854.

The bodies of those who died on the expedition remain on Mina, buried in the traditional methods of the residents there. The Mina have marked the orchard with a plaque to memorialize the expedition and the help it provided them in their darkest hour.

Rifleman James Alley was remanded to the custody of the Tula for his part in the death of one of their young. He had a trial which was overseen by Lt. Bell of the Expedition, Field Leader Palmer of the Mina Combined Arms Group, and a representative of the Kanya. Alley was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in penal custody. The Tula, having no prison system, transferred custody of Alley to the Kanya to serve his time in their penal system. The Mina have agreed to allow Rifleman Alley to return to Mina after he has served his time and become a member of their society if he so chooses.

Administrative matters are in process for the LS 2012A group and will take several weeks to sort out.

I’m starting to wonder how long I can take this job. Ferris had me tell Darwin that he suspected that the motivation behind Sim’s actions were to effect the rescue of Petty Officer Shelton, who is pregnant with Sim’s child. Is the motivation relevant? More importantly, is it something that Darwin needed to know? The ends do not justify the means here, he attacked her and kidnapped her. We have to have three flag officers to hold a court martial, so the best we can hope for is the Riemann to establish a solid communications link so that we can get Star Fleet to convene one.

I’m not sure where Ferris stands on all of this. He’s being fairly casual about it, but that’s not anything new. He casually walked into the street to have some sort of gun fight with the Vscika General, so I have no idea what his thoughts on this whole thing are, and if I ask him I’m not sure I can tolerate the answer.

I need to talk to Peabody about this memo from Darwin. I’m not sure it’s as simple as that. Ferris hasn’t made it any easier with activating and deactivating her commission like a light switch. I’m not sure when she’s officially in Star Fleet and when she’s officially a civilian contractor. And what the hell was that all about anyway? Biron I almost understand, he had more experience than any of those green marines, but what was the point of reactivating Darwin? It’s not like we have a shortage of operations officers.

Then there is Ms. Parker. I’ve gotten myself into a mess. I could really use a drink.

I am requesting that the charges filed by me against Dr. Sim Kalev be dropped. I am doing this in the best interest of my own health, which will be better served without the additional pressures being brought upon me by those who wish me to drop charges.

Karkaa

I can see the door from where I am kneeling.

The fugitives won’t be far away. They will be waiting to hear the explosion when Ferris finally releases his grip on the dead man’s switch. They will want to know when the job is done. They wont be far, because the explosion only has to kill him without destroying the GTM, so it’ll be made small. They will be waiting for a while. The switch is disabled and Ferris is being stabilized for transport.

I am not going after them though. Not because Stubbins wants us to stay together. Not because I want to make Parker happy by avoiding the whole “take the fugitives to Tula for Tula justice” thing. No. If I go, Leckie will follow, and he would probably get himself killed keeping me alive. So, I stay.

It’s been one of those trips where everything seems to go wrong. Granted, there are only two other people in the entire expedition that are used to roughing it to this extreme, so there are bound to be some speed bumps along the way.

We’re going to get cut off from home AGAIN. It should only be for a few days they say, but that’s assuming that they can translate Orden’s notes on the how the GTM communication system works and then successfully replicate it using a starship, a sun, and a main deflector dish. I’m not gonna hold my breath.

I’m a father. No, Emily didn’t have a baby. Apparently a one night stand in my past has yielded a child. Ripley Orden. Stop laughing. Take into account that Ripley knows this also and seems to have some sort of mad on about it. But, I can hardly blame her I guess, I’m not exactly daddy material. This begs the question, can I be? Emily wants to have a family, the main motivation behind me finally retiring. This naturally means the hope of children, if that’s even remotely possible from a medical stand point. I’d like to think I could learn to be a good father.

Ring was put in charge of a Jump Mission. That went to hell. Four dead. Star Fleet felt that they should take an active hand in running the operations here. They have since decided that they might not be fully aware of the situation and thus have agreed to stop making stupid decisions and let me be in command again. Fucktards. Now Ring is back to being a yellow shirt and helping the Mina coordinate the refugee operations in Ocean Grove.

Sim is in the brig. He apparently kidnapped Darwin from the hospital to drag her on a Jump Mission. I told him to go back and get her, I’m thinking my orders were not clear enough. Rieux tells me that she was under his care and suffering from some sort of anxiety disorder. Nurse Barton said in her statement to Tezeno that she was responding to a buzzer call from Darwin’s room. She heard a pulse pistol go off, and when she arrived Dr. Sim was half carrying Darwin out of the room. When they arrived back on Tula Darwin got sick, but I talked her into helping the team out. Then I left her there with the Tula while we went to regroup so that she could explain our situation to them. Best decision based on the limited information I had. Terrible decision based on the whole story. When Darwin brought me up to speed I told her to tell Tezeno and file a report. I think I know what was going on in Sim’s head based on his service record and recent rumor mill activity, but that’s neither her nor there.

Bishop 1.0 is sentient. He crossed the Red Line. Bishop 2.0 is doing fine, since a hard reset will do that to you. 2.0 has orders not to go through the GTM active, since the alien program that caused this event in the first place might try to come along for a visit again. 1.0 is currently installed in the Pillars on Mina, and unless I can get clearance from Star Fleet for him to come back home with us, that’s very likely where he’s going to stay.

Tezeno is upset with Stebbins for some shenanigans that apparently, in her words, “Are the root of every single problem we have right now.” I think she was emotional when she said it. She almost threw a PADD, but I gave her a wine bottle instead. She had the good sense not to throw that, instead opting to leave and drink it. Well, I presume she’ll drink it.

Ok, time for me to make the hard decision. Pull the Jump Team and conduct all the future Jump Missions with a squad of Marines. These people aren’t really cut out for this sort of thing. I’ll hand Stebbins the job of handling the Marine command when I’m on Jump Missions, that will let Greer keep doing his job and the marines will have some continuity.

It’s easy. All we have to do is find the GTM that is in our galaxy. Find the refugees and return the Star Fleet personnel. Not get everyone killed. Then overcome the GTM’s issues on P3-4797, the lock out, and then Jump home. Cake.

The USS Riemann notified us that P3-4797 would be entering it’s equinox shortly. This event would cause the GTM device to establish an uplink with all the network stations to exchange position update information. They estimated this uplink and update process would take several hours and very likely distort the planets magnetic field sufficiently to throw the GTM out of acceptable tolerance for operation. Star Fleet command made the decision to shut the unit down until such time as we are able to locate the station in our own galaxy and break the lock out encryption for the P3-4797 station. In the meantime the Riemann will be taking information supplied by Dr. Orden and attempting to simulate the sub-space communications link the GTM system uses, so that they can maintain communications with us during the GTM blackout.

CMDR Sim has been placed in detention after charges were filed by Ms. Darwin which indicated he had abducted her from the hospital to take her on a Jump Mission. Lt. Tezeno had him taken into custody and relocated to an improvised brig for the time being. It’s uncertain if a court martial will be conducted or what other steps will be taken.

In preparation for the GTM blackout the USS Hercules has arrived at P3-4797 to help assemble a supply Trans-Mat for us. Lists were prepared and sent to the Hercules to prepare the supplies that she had available. We are expecting the delivery tomorrow morning.

The official orders regarding the refugee group is that all military personnel are to be brought back to Mina, but all the civilians with the group are free to either return to Mina or continue as a group. The situation is complicated by the fact that the group killed a native to Tula, and CMDR Ferris has agreed to deliver the guilty party to the Tula so that they can impose whatever punishment their justice system deems appropriate.

Being confined in this improvised prison cell is both better and worse than being in a Cardassian prison camp.
Better because I’m not hauled out of my cell and tortured every three hours of the day.
Worse because, while in Cardassian hands, I at least had an all-consuming hatred to sustain me.

I feel no rancor towards Bindi Darwin. What I did to earn her enmity, before the stunning incident, naturally, is a complete mystery to me. Perhaps I will find out at some point.

While the result of the incident is regrettable, given the same set of circumstances I would do the same thing.
I have had everything I held dear taken from me once before. No. Twice.
It is not going to happen again.

A couple minutes ago I told Leckie he is fired from being Bob. He probably thinks I am joking or just talking crazy, but I’m not. I have been expecting too much out of him anyhow. Stubbins handed out too big a job when he made Leckie my babysitter. I’m blaming Leckie for not being there when I needed him, but you know, neither was Stubbins, and I thought he was my friend. I ought to fire him too. An ancient drunk booty call is all anybody thinks of now, and I need to clearly broadcast some clarifications regarding the present status. Not that its really anybody’s business at all. If I ignore the chatter, Orden’s soap opera will attract the attention of the masses and they will be distracted from me and my business.

I didn’t get any restful sleep on Toola. I was worried that Bishop2 would go off his nut and start killing cat people or try to kill me. He didn’t, and they didn’t decide to come for me in the middle of the night. One of them had been eyeballing me and I was afraid he was going to try something, but nothing happened. Maybe the vomit on my shirt smelled like dessert and he was hungry. I shouldn’t have promised the Toola that I would personally hunt down the fugitives. I am tired and beyond my limit. If Bishop was okay, he could do what I do. Hell, even Leckie has learned a few of my tricks. RB Ferris wants the fugitives heads. But I couldn’t promise they’d bring the fugitives back to Toola instead of bypassing Toola’s justice, whatever that might be. I don’t care what The Toola do to the fugitives. It isn’t my problem. I think there may be loud objections to that though, so it’s on me to be the Toola agent.

And we went thru what might turn out to be a one way door to another damaged world. At least Sim isn’t here with us. That’s one less thing to tip me over the edge again.

Thundercats are Go!

I don’t have any of my stuff. Dammit!

(grumbling) I was right about Sim. Patch ‘em up and send ’em out and don’t bother him with medical situations that don’t involve blood or broken bones. If I live long enough, I’m filing kidnapping charges and reporting him to the medical board.

And Ferris. Can’t trust him. He left me with Bishop. Or left Bishop with me. I’m not sure. Ferris says Bishop is corrupted. They did something to him to try to fix it. He gave me a thing that I can use to destroy Bishop if the fix didn’t work. Wonderful. Cats to the left of me, Bishop to the right. At least I’ve got this much; when this thing with Bishop or the cats or both all go horribly terribly wrong, Ferris gets to be the one to explain it all. Him and Sim get to live with it forever and ever.